Cooking With Sweet Spices

Moroccan Vegetable Stew

Although the phrase ‘sweet spices’ conjures up images of toothsome desserts and other sweet things, it can also mean savory, as in using spices to flavor salty foods, to make them spicy without the heat. Many Middle Eastern, South Asian and Mediterranean cuisines use spices we normally use in sweets, like cinnamon and clove to flavor savories. And they’re delicious. These sweet spices include turmeric, cumin, coriander seed, star anise, mustard seeds, sweet paprika, saffron, fennel seed, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg. Most of these spices have antioxidant properties so getting comfortable with using them is a boon to those of us in the cancer community, plus their flavors can help mitigate taste changes caused by cancer treatment. The recipes that follow are savory, tasty, and all use the concept of sweet spices to perfection. Enjoy!